Nepal earthquake death toll hits 5,000 as aid starts flowing in

KATHMANDU, Nepal – The death toll from the devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Nepal surpassed 5,000 on Tuesday, as the government pushed back against criticism over a slow response.

Rescuers were still digging bodies out of the rubble in the capital Kathmandu, where centuries-old buildings were flattened by Saturday’s quake and many people were sleeping outside for fear of further aftershocks.

Nepal’s National Emergency Operation Center said the death toll had reached 5,057 and that nearly 11,000 people were injured in the quake. Officials have said it was impossible to tell how many bodies remained buried — meaning the death toll could continue to rise.

Ross Prince, a 62-year-old Canadian tourist, was at the scene digging with his hands. Prince was on vacation when the quake struck — but said his focus immediately shifted to helping out with relief efforts.

“All you can do is…turn around and help the others,” he told NBC News. “It’s awful. We have to do something…It just tears you apart.”

While some grocery stores have reopened in the capital, banks and larger businesses remained closed, according to an operational update issued by the U.N. late Monday.

The U.N. said that with fuel running low, cars were lined up at gas stations; ATMs were still working but not being replenished; households that did have power were relying on generators, and cell network outages and overloads were also common.

Further complicating the relief effort, a heavy rainstorm broke out in Kathmandu on Tuesday and meteorologists were predicting more rain over the next 10 days.

A team from the humanitarian charity Doctors Without Borders took a helicopter ride over 65 villages to the east, west and north of Kathmandu on Monday. They reported back that 45 — more than two thirds of these isolated communities — were damaged or completely destroyed.

The International Organization for Migration said on Twitter that aerial and satellite surveillance showed “whole towns” had been flattened.

In the mountainous Gorkha district, near the epicenter of the quake, helicopters crisscrossed the skies as rescuers ferried injured people and supplies to and from remote villages, The Associated Press reported.